Born in Austin, Texas, William Hobbs received his Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance summa cum laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a Master of Music in Piano Performance, Research and Literature from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. His teachers have included Thomas Schumacher, Paul Parmelee, Doris Pridinoff Lehnert, and Larry Graham for piano and Neil Varon, Brad Lubman, and Allan MacMurray for conducting.

As soloist, Hobbs was featured with orchestras and ensembles such as the Gulbenkian Foundation Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal (Mozart) and the University of Colorado Wind Ensemble (Stravinsky, Messiaen). As recitalist, he has been featured in festivals like the Hamptons Music Festival (Southampton, NY) and the Chester Music Festival (Chester, England). He has performed full and partial recitals in over a dozen countries, including the United States, England, Korea, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Malta, Poland and others. As chamber musician, he has collaborated with many of today’s top performers, including Yo- Yo Ma, Ida Kavafian, James Galway, and many others.

As collaborative pianist and conductor, Hobbs works at many of the world’s major opera houses, including the Opéra National de Paris, the Salzburg Festival, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Seattle Opera, Washington Opera, and the Opéra de Monte- Carlo.

Hobbs joined the Piano and Voice Faculty at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey in Fall 2010. He joined the Vocal Arts Faculty of the Juilliard School of Music in 2014. He is currently teaching Collaborative Piano with a focus on Opera Coaching for the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and recently joined the Faculty of the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University (Montclair, New Jersey). Hobbs joined the faculty of the Peabody Institute in Fall 2020, teaching Czech and Russian diction.

He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Opera Slavica, which is devoted to presenting full productions of masterworks from Russian, Czech and Polish composers.

Hobbs can be heard in recordings of of music by Lowell Liebermann for Albany, Xavier Montsalvage for Naxos, and Dave Soldier for Mulatta records. He was Music Director for the Opera America Songbook, published and recorded by Schott, which featured new songs composed by forty-six of the most prominent living composers. He also performs on several of the tracks. His most recent recording project was as producer for a recording of songs by Ricky Ian Gordon for Bright Shiny Things recordings, with soprano Jennifer Zetlan and the composer at the piano.